Afghan police: US airstrike kills farmers

By NOOR KHAN and AMIR SHAH (AP)

August 5, 2009

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A local police chief says a Western airstrike has killed five farmers loading cucumbers into a taxi in southern Afghanistan.

A U.S. spokeswoman says the five were militants placing explosives in a van.

The U.S. imposed rules last month restricting airstrikes to limit civilian deaths causing deep resentment among Afghans.

District police chief Niaz Mohammad Sarhadi says the airstrike killed the five farmers at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday as they tried to move cucumbers from the rural Zhari district to the city of Kandahar.

Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker says the U.S. believes they were loading munitions.

She said the U.S. will review footage from the Apache helicopter's video camera to determine what happened.